


The Birth of an Idea

by RavensRevenge



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensRevenge/pseuds/RavensRevenge
Summary: Holden couldn't help but ask himself 'what more can we do?'A look into the thought processes that launched criminal profiling as a weapon in law enforcement's arsenal.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Birth of an Idea

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Mindhunter and all speech is taken directly from the first episode.
> 
> This is simply my attempt at filling the gaps between what is said and what is not said that leads Holden and Bill towards interviewing serial killers.

**_ The Birth of an Idea _ **

**_ 1977 _ **

**_ BRADDOCK, PENNSYLVANIA _ **

The drive was made in silence as Holden digested as much of the information as he could. He liked to be more prepared, but the very nature of hostage negotiation meant that events tended to unfold quickly. Once a discourse was opened up, _that_ was when he would learn the most, both directly by talking things through with the perp and indirectly as information flowed in as it was gathered by local PD and the FBI’s own research analysts.

He barely spared a glace at the depressing, backstreet part of town that Cody Miller has chosen to make a stand as his driver pulled through the crowd. When he finally climbed out of the car, he was thankful to see that, while the ground was still very wet, the rain had stopped lashing down. Holden found there were few things more miserable than being stuck in the cold, pouring rain for hours on end as he tried to wear down an agitated hostage-taker.

He introduced himself and flashed his badge to the approaching officer, barely pausing as he silently dismissed the offer of a vest and made his way to the officer on the loudspeaker, presumably the man in charge of the scene, who was trying to get Miller to lay down arms and let his hostages go.

Holden introduced himself and tried to ignore the critical eye passed over him. He was used to it. He knew he looked young and that his appearance didn’t inspire much confidence in the old timers, either local police or FBI. Habitually facing such casual dismissal had inured him somewhat, but he still found it frustrating and frequently found himself biting back his instinctive reactions, especially when _they_ were the ones showing themselves to be inept.

He kept it short and sweet with Officer Ninkovich as he established what, if anything, had changed in the situation when suddenly Miller appeared with the female hostage at the loading bay doors. Holden tried to keep the sigh quiet but he couldn’t believe how antagonistic Ninkovich was being over the loudspeaker – Miller’s words and reactions were proof enough that the policeman’s approach wasn’t working but he only seemed to want to level more threats towards their clearly unhinged hostage-taker.

“Hey Cody,” he said as he stepped in front of Ninkovich, eschewing the offered loudspeaker as he took a couple more steps forward, a hand held high in an effort to show peaceful intent. “My name is Holden. I’d like to help you. Tell me what’s going on.”

Short, simple and direct sentences. He wanted to try and deescalate the situation, reduce the level of fear and paranoia that was being shown by Miller. When given the request to _‘get these fucking people away’_ , Holden paused and actually looked back at the onlookers. 

Local cops were spread out, loosely maintaining a perimeter while others took up position behind whatever barriers they had available to them in the open lot, aiming unwavering guns towards the perp. Reporters, smelling potential blood in the air, were shouting questions and taking photos, looking for their next big scoop and uncaring of what their overwhelming numbers might mean to a half-crazed gunman so long as their got their story. Curious bystanders were spread throughout them all, watching the drama unfold with fervent interest and treating it all like street opera.

He knew there was nothing he could do about the cops, but he could at the very least have the reporters and onlookers moved back, give them all a little more breathing room.

“Keep the snipers, back out the perimeter,” he told Ninkovich.

“What if he starts firing?” Ninkovich asked in disbelief. “We’ll have to storm the place.”

“They’re making _me_ nervous,” Holden pointed out evenly. “Imagine what they’re doing to _him_. He has no criminal history, he’s _clearly_ having an episode – we need to keep him calm and wear him down.”

Ninkovich stares at him a beat before following through with his request and when Holden turns back round to talk to Miller he almost doesn’t know what to say.

“You see me?” Miller called out, somewhat unsure himself as he moved to the side of his terrified hostage, trousers round his ankles.

“Oh God,” Holden muttered under his breath. He hated dealing with the crazy ones. He could talk to, calm down and rationalise with the angry, the fearful, but the crazy? He didn’t know how to talk to them. He took a deep breath. “Yes, I can see you.”

“What do you see?” Miller asked, somewhere between bewildered and challenging.

“I can see that you’re naked. I can see that you’re cold…” he trailed off quietly, not quite sure what he was supposed to be seeing.

When the patrol car pulled up with the wife in it, Holden dashed forward to try and mitigate the damage her presence might cause. He still didn’t know enough about the situation, about who Cody Miller was and why he was doing the things he was doing. Would the wife make things worse? Could she shed any insights? Until he knew the answer to those two questions, she needed to be kept out of sight.

That she had tried to get her husband sectioned complicated matters somewhat. Holden already knew that Miller was somewhat unbalanced – pulling down your trousers in front of police and reporters with a shotgun aimed at a sobbing young woman before cautiously demanding whether or not they could see him…? Yes, it was more than clear that he was having an episode.

However, loved ones, while normally the first to know something was wrong, were usually the ones to hold out hope the longest, denying reality certain that they could help, make everything normal again. For Mrs. Miller to have taken that step…? Chances were that Cody was beyond a calming cup of camomile tea and a few days off work.

“He’s not violent,” the wife assured them. “He’s been saying that he’s invisible for a while now.” Holden and Ninkovich shared a look – that at least explained some of Miller’s actions. If he’d suddenly gone off his prescribed meds that could also explain a lot.

“What was he doing that you tried to get him sanctioned for?”

“He kept talking to people that weren’t there, saying _they_ could see him. I told him I was gonna leave him if he didn’t go to the hospital.”

Holden felt his heart sink but tried to keep his voice even as he clarified things with the wife, even as his mind was spinning with how to use this new information to end the situation safely. How could he compete with voices only Cody could hear? What was the right way to respond to something like that? And an ultimatum from his wife? Holden couldn’t let her near him now, she would not be a tool useful in calming him down and might, in fact, be a target for his angry and very confused mind.

“This is not your fault,” he tried to reassure the wife before sending her out of view. He brushed off Ninkovich’s ideas for using the wife without explaining himself. He wanted to open a dialogue with Cody, get him talking, find out what exactly it was that he wanted with his wife – the man already had five hostages and Holden knew he couldn’t expose anyone else to the threat Miller currently posed.

Encouraging Miller to talk, to pick up the phone only seemed to agitate him further. Holden didn’t know why Cody was so angry but his instincts told him the wife’s presence would make things much more volatile.

“I understand your frustration,” Holden promised, trying to calm Miller down and form a connection. “Not being able to communicate with a trusted loved one.” It was a true enough statement but Holden knew how it sounded given the circumstances – insincere, a meaningless platitude. He’d always had a firm grasp on the way someone’s mind worked but talking with them? Conveying that understanding? _Not_ his strong suit. “What do you want to say to her?”

“Why would I tell you?” a simple question, one Miller offered without malice merely confusion.

“Maybe I can help,” Holden shrugged. Miller was proving to be as unmoved as a brick wall by all his earnest talk. He was getting frustrated at finding no clear opening with the man.

“I don’t think so,” Miller replied calmly. Before Holden even had a chance to process the movement Cody had turned the gun on himself and his head exploded in a spray of red mist. He distantly heard a woman screaming but paid it no attention, his focus narrowed in on the headless corpse that lay on the floor of the loading bay as he sprinted towards it. 

He knew it was a fruitless endeavour, knew there was no way Miller had survived a shotgun blast to the head at point blank range, but he felt impelled to hurry over, to feel for an impossible pulse, to witness the carnage he had played a part in up close. The clouds opened once again – as the local PD saw to the hostages, Holden stood in silent vigil over the body, mindless of the downpour, watching as the rainwater started to wash away the evidence of his failed night’s work.

He had done everything right, everything he had been taught, but he had been so wholly unprepared for the likes of Cody Miller – Quantico had never taught him how to handle someone like that, how to react to that level of crazy. How could he ever hope to help the Millers of the world if he couldn’t understand them?

* * *

**_ FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA _ **

His apartment was small, neat and functional – everything had a place, but as he entered that night, he didn’t have it in him to bother about his clothes soaked through with rainwater leaving a damp trail across his floor, or the jacket that fell with a damp _thump_ onto his pale carpet after carelessly tossing it on a chair.

He headed for the fridge and quickly dismissed the beer, all too aware that he would want something stronger if he started on that course. As he wiped the milky residue on his sleeve he noticed the red stain on his shirt cuff – a small, but terrible reminder of the events of the day and suddenly he couldn’t bear to keep it on him. 

He had been quiet as things were wrapped up at the scene but he’d held it together, he’d _had_ to, but now, in the relative comfort of his own home where he didn’t have to pretend anymore, he could finally react without judgement. He quickly stripped off his shirt and tie and frantically scrubbed it under the running tap for a few moments. He removed the worst of the stain but knew it was a hopeless endeavour. With a wordless shake of his head and a surrendering sigh, he stared sightlessly at the sink and watched as, once again, water washed away Cody Miller’s blood.

He knew he wouldn’t sleep well, knew he couldn’t yet risk lying down in bed only to be awoken by dreams of loud shotgun blasts, bloody explosions and a crushing sense of failure. He sat in a chair and thought about all the other ways the Cody Miller situation might have been resolved if only he had spoken the right words, done the right thing. He felt utterly lost as he came up with no answers.

* * *

**_ QUANTICO, VIRGINIA. _ **

Being called in to see the Unit Chief first thing on a morning was never a good thing. When the Unit Chief’s secretary offered a warm cup of coffee with a comforting smile…well, even a stoic like Holden couldn’t swallow his anxiety. Looking for distractions he noticed Berkowitz on the cover of Time magazine, but he didn’t need to be reading about any more shootings, he was already trying to swallow back his bile as he thought about discussing Cody Miller’s missing head with his boss.

Shepherd surprised him. 

Instead of reaming him out, demanding an explanation for where it all went wrong, the older man offered words of comfort: “You followed procedure. You did your job. You did everything by the book. He took hostages – he knew there’d be consequences. You’re not his shrink – you’re not responsible for diagnosing him, that’s not your remit. These things happen in real time and we are the last responders. If an operation’s going to go south, this is not the worst outcome.”

However, it was only once Holden started to hear those sentiments that he realised that he could find no real comfort in the man’s speech, could barely even manage eye contact. He appreciated the attempt to make him feel better, but to him it all felt like empty platitudes, hollow justifications for failing to save everyone in Braddock that night. He didn’t want to hear them. He didn’t want validation, he wanted an explanation. He wanted to know what he could have done to save _everyone_.

“If I did everything by the book, it begs the question…” he trailed off. He thought it so obvious that the question needn’t be asked but clearly he and Shepherd were not on the same wavelength.

“You didn’t lose one hostage or bystander. _That’s_ how we measure success.” Holden has to break eye contact again, bow his head in shame and take a deep breath. Braddock felt anything _but_ a success and he couldn’t stand to see the proud look in Shepherd’s eyes as the Unit Chief spouted that lie.

The idea of being relegated to the classroom however, despite his failure the previous night, felt like a real punch to the gut.

“It seasoned you,” Shepherd argued, stating he had even more to teach now, trying to make it seem like less of a punishment, but Holden knew otherwise and tried to politely decline the offer, only to find out it was less of an offer and more of an order.

* * *

His class was listening attentively enough, but Holden could hear the weariness in his own voice. He had never much enjoyed the teaching side of his job. He preferred intellectual discussions on the topic with those who had experience or a different outlook, but trying to talk to eager recruits whose first instincts towards negotiating came via the barrel of a gun was tiresome and, more often than not, irksome. He had never been able to understand why anyone would insist on using a gun as a matter of first recourse when there was the possibility of an intelligent, non-violent alternative.

“We _must_ establish communication,” he offered as he went through the slides of another unsuccessful negotiation, one that was the antithesis of what he was trying to teach them. “ _Non-threatening_ communication. Ascertain demands, concede nothing, reject nothing, just _listen_. Listen to what he has to say. Try understanding him instead of trying to dominate him. Look for common ground, _find_ commonality, and if it feels like you’re buying time…well, that’s because you are, but it’s the key to making any perp feel heard. 

“Our goal is no body bags,” Holden stated as the class got up to leave. Part of him can’t believe he had to say such a thing, that it wasn’t taken as a given, but the FBI’s outlook could still be very old school, despite the rapid social progressiveness of the Sixties and Seventies.

On leaving his lecture hall, empty and in the dark, ready to head home and forget about the day he was distracted by impassioned words coming from across the hall.

“…wanton, indiscriminate murder. Seemingly random, serendipitous. Each one, extremely violent – no explanation, no apparent reason. They weren’t sexually assaulted, there was no attempt to relieve them of their valuables, they didn’t know their assailant.” Professor Rathman was stood in front of an avid audience, clicking through slides on Son of Sam. “Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz were making out in their car when David Berkowitz walked up and shot them both point-blank. Berkowitz killed six people over two summers, wounding seven more. Why? Because _a dog_ told him to do it.

“Now…we can say that the guy’s crazy, or that he’s pretending that he’s crazy, but if we’re looking for a motive we can understand, we suddenly find there is none. It’s a void. It’s a black hole.”

Holden paused by the open doorway, fascinated. Part of him felt relieved that he was not the only one struggling to find motive in the actions of certain people the FBI came across, the other part was intrigued by the void. _Why_ was there a void?

“Forty years ago, your FBI was founded hunting down John Dillinger, Baby-Face Nelson, Machine-Gun Kelly,” the lecturer continued. “Criminals who thumbed their noses at society, but were basically in it for personal gain. _Now_ , we have extreme violence between strangers. Where do we go when motive becomes elusive?”

Holden could hear the question echoing around his brain but he could not come up with a clear answer. He knew that he wanted one though and so he followed the man who asked a question he had never before heard being uttered within the hallowed halls of Quantico.

He introduced himself nervously, not sure what he really wanted from the man but aware that he wanted _something_ , even if it was just a little intellectual stimulation. An offer of a beer and further discussion fell from his lips before he’d even formulated what he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t find it within himself to regret it.

* * *

“Look at the list of unprecedented events that have occurred in the past decade and a half,” Rathman stated from his barstool. “A president assassinated, fighting an unpopular war that _we_ didn’t win.”

“National Guard killing four college students,” Holden offered.

“You can hardly wrap your head around it,” Rathman agreed.

“Watergate,” Holden states, frowning as he realised just how easy it was to add to Rathman’s list.

“Our democracy is vanishing into what?” the professor asked helplessly.

“Is that what all this is about, just a response to turmoil?” Holden demanded softly, as he sat up straight on his barstool in earnest, feeling like understanding was finally within his grasp. “The world barely makes any sense so it follows that crime doesn’t either.”

“Listen,” Rathman shrugged helplessly. “You and I could theorize all night long but the truth is I don’t fucking know.”

“I don’t know either.”

“No one does,” Rathman stated firmly.

“But we’re _supposed_ to…right?” Holden asked almost hesitantly. He had never liked being without the answers, and the incident with Miller up in Braddock only highlighted that. It felt wrong to admit, even a couple of beers in to a casual conversation at a bar with an outsider, that the FBI didn’t have those answers, that _no one_ had those answers. Surely, out of everyone, the FBI were supposed to be the authority on such things?

“Sure,” the professor agreed easily. “But _here’s_ the troubling thing, no one’s even asking the questions.”

Holden had to break eye contact at that. It _was_ troubling. He had asked himself what he might have done differently in trying to understand Cody Miller’s motives up in Braddock without success. In Shepherd’s office, he had alluded to it, had danced around the subject but had hesitated in actually voicing the question himself, trailing off and leaving the Unit Chief to fill in the blanks when it was obvious that the man was never going to do so.

“We are,” Holden finally offered tentatively to his drinking partner. With the loose promise of another conversation, Rathman left and Holden leaned forward against the bar. He might have tried to delve much deeper into the consequences of his conversation with Rathman, but with too little sleep, too much alcohol and an enticing distraction stood next to him, Holden let thoughts of the void go for now.

After being caught checking the young woman out, Holden offered tentative small talk. Even _he_ winced at his attempts to remain cool in the face of a beautiful woman and had difficulty maintaining eye contact with the forthright lady. He eventually soothed his nerves somewhat through the course of the conversation and even kind of enjoyed the needling from her, though he wasn’t quite sure how to take it – was he offending her? Amusing her? Charming her?

“Where are you really from?” she demanded, intrigue on her face.

Holden both loved and loathed that question. On the one hand, that question invited conversation which to someone as socially awkward as he could be at times could be a real boon. On the other hand, he had no real answer, certainly not one that avoided his childhood at any rate.

“Everywhere,” he offered with a shrug. He tended to mention New York for a number of reasons, despite the fact that he wasn’t there long, and he always seemed to get the same reaction.

“You do _not_ seem like a guy from New York,” she offered with an indulgent shake of her head. Those words had always sounded like an insult and he was sure it was the same now.

“You don’t seem like a girl from Corktown,” he challenged her, certain he was being rude and had possibly ruined his chances with her but figured he might as well try anyway. “Buy you a drink?”

Somehow he must have done something right because she agreed and then they ended up watching the band together. He tried to make more conversation, wishing he was better at small talk.

“What do you think of Durkheim’s labelling theory on deviancy?” she asked, avoiding eye contact but leaning in closer to him. He didn’t know of it and wasn’t afraid to ask. He expected the teasing but was glad that they were at least talking instead of just nodding their heads along to the music in silence.

“Durkheim says all forms of deviancy are simply a challenge to the normalised repressiveness of the state.”

“So…he’s an anarchist?” Holden asked, feeling a little lost and underprepared for such an intellectual discussion on a topic he was unfamiliar with.

“No,” the woman laughed. “He was the first person to suggest that if there’s something wrong with our society, then criminality is a response to that.”

After she further challenged his teaching ability Holden shook his head, somewhat in disbelief. “Boy, you are _hard_ work!”

“My point is you teach about criminality but you’ve never heard of labelling theory?”

“Why don’t you give me a reading list.” Holden answered with a sigh, finally giving up.

Once again, she surprised him, took him by the hand and led him onto the dance floor. He couldn’t help but regret that somewhat – his dancing was even more awkward than his ability to hold casual conversation. In the face of further mockery, he felt the need to defend himself, to try and make himself seem more interesting to a twenty-four year old college student, but she was relentless.

Somehow, Debbie, as he finally learned she was named, decided to take him back to her place. The room smelled of weed, there was drug paraphernalia interspersed with textbooks and a typewriter, yet another dichotomy of her character. He could feel himself becoming more nervous, more intrigued by the smart, beautiful and scornful young woman in front of him. She tempted him in so many ways, even enticing him towards joining her in her drug habit. She was a siren and he felt helpless to resist.

* * *

It wasn’t a film he would have gone to see alone but he was glad that he went. Yet another boundary Debbie was able to push him into testing. It was strange to see hostage negotiation play out on the big screen. He liked that it felt real, the unease felt by both cops and the perp, the dialogue – it felt wholly familiar to Holden and he already knew that _‘Dog Day Afternoon’_ would make it into one of his forthcoming lectures.

“He was obviously very disturbed, but somehow I liked him,” Holden admitted with some level of surprise. He was a law enforcement agent, after all, and they were not supposed to side with the villains.

“Yeah, you have empathy,” Debbie replied without a moment’s hesitation.

He agreed, not because he was certain he was empathetic but because it was certainly something he had always tried to be for his job. Sympathy could only get someone so far in a career in law enforcement, compassion a useful tool to have and to offer in dire times, but what most people wanted far more than compassion was understanding. 

Holden had always been quite good at climbing into people’s heads, putting himself in their shoes, understanding them and their problems, where they were coming from, what made them tick. Compassion, a friendly ear as they commiserated on those things…? That had always been a weakness. He couldn’t regret his empathy, considering the understanding it often gave him in his line of work, but he had often felt as though sympathy would get him further in the everyday world. Somehow, with the way Debbie spoke about it, it didn’t seem like such a shortcoming.

“Yeah, empathy,” he agreed with a smile.

* * *

When Holden raised the possibility of returning to University and studying Contemporary Applied Criminal Psychology at UVA with Shepherd, he felt sure he could persuade the Unit Chief with his rationale.

“We need to know the current academic thinking,” he argued softly so as not to disturb the class in the background. “Get updated. What’s the thinking _now_?”

“As far as the Bureau is concerned, psychology is for backroom boys. You understand what I am trying to say?” Shepherd whispered, eyes scoring into his younger colleague.

“No,” Holden admitted, curious about what, exactly, Shepherd _was_ trying to say but equally sure that Holden didn’t really care, so certain was he that he was right about this. “We should be using every resource we can,” Holden pointed out, still trying to win his case with a seemingly very reluctant Unit Chief. “Talking to the smartest people we find, from the broadest possible spectrum. Hoover died over five years ago and we’re still recruiting accountants and lawyers like its 1946.” Eventually, somehow, he managed to convince Shepherd that a return to education had some merit.

“You will be expected to use the opportunity for recruitment. Speakers, lecturers, great minds.” Shepherd insisted.

“Are you sure you want _me_ doing that?” Holden asked somewhat incredulously. He knew his Unit Chief was aware of how that was very definitely _not_ his area of expertise and wondered why he would even think to suggest it.

“You’re smart, you’re idealistic, more than a little sensitive. They’re gonna love you,” the Unit Chief brushed away his concerns with a slightly patronising grin and a friendly pat to the arm before beating a hasty retreat, probably scared the young agent would ask for something else from him. 

It wouldn’t have mattered if the man had stayed, Holden wouldn’t have known how to respond to the order anyway.

* * *

**_ CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA _ **

Holden knew he stuck out like a sore thumb on campus, with his suit and polished appearance, but then again, he wasn’t trying to hide. He diligently took notes throughout the course of the lecture – his first one and already he was riveted.

“Personality and character far outweigh the presence of psychotic or defective diagnoses. In other words, by extrapolation, are criminals born, or are they formed?”

Words that resonated with Holden, especially given his talk with Rathman about the way crime had changed and why, and his conversations with Debbie about Durkheim’s labelling theory, both suggesting that nurture had perhaps an even greater input that nature.

He can’t deny that he was unsurprised by his inability to recruit his professor, had known he would not be the great recruitment tool Shepherd seemed to think he might be, but he was also disappointed by the rigorous us/them approach that still seemed to permeate the academic and law enforcement communities. How could anything ever change if those two sides failed to even talk to each other?

* * *

**_ QUANTICO, VIRGINIA _ **

His class seemed engrossed in the movie, but Holden couldn’t tell whether or not it was because they were looking at it through the eyes of law enforcement, or simply watching a good film.

“Always expect complicated,” he told them slowly, firmly. That was the main thing. So many of the new recruits thought nothing about the skills involved with Hostage Negotiation, wanted to rely upon threats of force, but most situations were far to complicated for that to be the only strategy, the winning strategy.

The roleplay went about as well as they always do with fresh recruits – still so young and cocky, sure they know everything, turning it into a drama class or using it as an opportunity to hurl obscenities at each other.

Of _course_ that would be when Shepherd made an appearance, when some smartarse challenged the whole point of practising dialogue, of Hostage Negotiation and he had to bite back his words, be teacherly instead of telling the idiot to shut the hell up and drop the macho bullshit. Oh well, with the recruits swearing at each other and challenging his authority, maybe it would at least clue the Unit Chief in on the fact that he really shouldn’t be given _more_ teaching responsibilities when he could barely tolerate the ones he already had.

Shepherd was dismissive of the value of role-playing, but at least he introduced the idea of talking to someone in the Behavioural Science Unit, something that had never occurred to Holden but as soon as the idea had been raised, he could think of little else.

* * *

Bill Tench was not the typical agent. Clearly former military with his haircut and bearing, but his somewhat rumpled suit and colourful tie spoke to someone a little less staid than the usual trench coat brigade at the FBI.

Holden had expected a more formal introduction and was somewhat unsure on how to proceed in the casual atmosphere of the cafeteria. Luckily, Tench seemed like an amiable sort, with a free and easy manner that left Holden feeling somewhat enviable.

“I don’t smoke when I don’t eat either,” Holden confessed with a wince, aware of how awkward he sounded. He was so used to prevaricating in the course of his job in Hostage Negotiation that giving straight answers was rarely straightforward – some habits were clearly too ingrained to break.

“So did Shepherd talk to you about my thing?” he asked eagerly, leaning forward in his seat and forgetting about his lunch in the face of talking to someone from the BSU.

“He did his best,” Tench admitted with a smile after a quick assessing look at the young agent in front of him.

“What does that mean?”

“He can be pretty old school,” Tench grinned wolfishly like he was making a private joke. Sadly, it wasn’t a joke and Holden knew just how much truth there was in that statement. “I call this place the _‘country club’_ , because, you know, it can be a little starchy sometimes.”

“I hear that,” Holden agreed, forcing himself to lean back in his chair and adopt a more relaxed approach with the BSU agent who was clearly trying to get a solid read on him. His age, of course, came up, as it so often did.

“Lot of guys your age don’t want to go back to school because they feel it undermines their authority,” Tench pointed out, his assessing gaze not leaving the younger agent’s face.

“I was hoping it would _give_ me some authority,” Holden admitted somewhat shamefacedly. It sounded ridiculous to say it out loud but it didn’t lessen the truth. He _wanted_ to learn more, to be informed by the most recent studies, to understand the latest developments in the field.

“You’re so eager to do good that you have a big, blue flame shooting out of your asshole,” Bill informed him with a knowing grin. It was far from the worst thing anyone had said about him and in all honesty, it didn’t even sound like that much of an insult but he knew it probably was. He played with his tie hidden under the table to try and hide his discomfort from someone who was, by his very job role, trained to see such things.

“I’m just trying to be a better instructor,” he shrugged.

“Right, well, I was thinking about that,” Tench replied, this time he was the one leaning forward. “I started this thing a couple of years ago. I go on the road and train classes in various police departments, from Buffalo, New York, to San Diego, California. There’s a million cops out there who want to know what we know. So, I go to them, give them a distillation of what we teach here, and they tell me what they’ve been doing. 

“They learn something, and I learn something first-hand by getting involved on their level. But it’s a big job, you know?” Tench left it open, the hint too big a challenge to ignore and Holden was just curious enough to pick up the gauntlet.

“Maybe we could help each other,” Bill offered, arms crossed and a pleased smile adorning his face. Holden wasn’t sure why the BSU agent looked like the proverbial cat who got the canary, but he was already excited at the idea of teaching eager cops over cocky recruits, learning just what is was that Tench did and how he could use that knowledge in his own search for better, clearer answers.

* * *

Another fun night with Debbie ended up with great sex, well, great for him at the very least. “Did you orgasm?” he asked earnestly.

“You can’t tell if a woman is faking?”

“I can’t even tell if a woman is interested,” Holden confessed. He was experienced, certainly no blushing virgin, but he had not had as many sexual partners as a man his age might hope to boast of, as many as he suspected Debbie might have had. His insecurities were already raising their ugly head, exacerbated by the fact that he couldn’t help but question why someone like Debbie would choose to be with someone like him.

“Are you my girlfriend?”

“Wait, is this another of those things you just can’t tell?” Debbie asked with a disbelieving laugh. “Really Holden, sometimes you’re like a monk. Surely people in law enforcement shouldn’t be so naïve.”

“Then why _are_ you with me?” he pushed.

“You’re smart. You’re nice…what?” she asked as Holden pulled away. “Those are _good_ things.”

There were, and he shouldn’t feel slighted by them but they rang hollow – easy words, words that offered no real explanation, carried no weight, words that had been levelled his way one too many times before an inevitable _‘but…’_. There were plenty of nice, smart people out there, couldn’t she offer him something real? Something tangible instead of more mockery.

How could he be expected to take her at her word if she mocked him for the very things she supposedly found appealing in him. He didn’t have it in him to fight and he didn’t want to risk screwing things up any further by being himself, so he thought it best simply to remove himself from the situation. He did, after all, have work to do in the morning.

* * *

**_ FAIRFIELD, IOWA _ **

Bill gave him a few words of warning about how to behave as they drove into Fairfield, which Holden was grateful for given that he really didn’t know what to expect.

“Motive, means, opportunity – the three pillars of criminal investigation for the last century,” Tench started his lecture. “But its 1977 and suddenly motive is elusive. What? Why? Who? – what happened and why did it happen that way? Which _should_ lead to: who did it?

“A person is murdered. Not sexually assaulted, not robbed, but the body is mutilated posthumously. The question is not only _why_ did the killer do it, but why did the killer do it _this way_? We are now talking about psychology.”

Holden could see that Tench had the room’s attention, the older agent certainly had his. Holden didn’t think he had ever or would ever manage to get a room full of people to listen to him so attentively. He was so engrossed in Tench’s talk and the idea’s it caused to bounce around his head that he almost missed the signal to add his piece.

“When I’m involved in a hostage negotiation, the perpetrator is standing right in front of me, but I have to gauge how much destruction he’s capable of, what’s in his background or personal life that could’ve triggered today’s standoff.”

“Some people are just crazy, right?” an officer interjected, confusion evident on his face as he tried to pair up Holden’s words with Tench’s earlier speech.

“Crazy in that they have no reason for what they do? Okay. But keep in mind, often, this crazy person has never done anything like this before.”

“Something just flips…like a switch,” the same policeman offered.

“Good. A switch. Anyone knows what flips it?” he asks as he looks at the shadowed faces before him. He could see that he had their attention, granted not with the same level of intensity or clarity that Tench had achieved, but it was on a level he rarely got from his recruits. 

These were not men being told something for the first time, half certain they already had all of the answers to the questions being presented to them after only a few weeks of intensive training at Quantico. These were men who were intimately acquainted with reality after many years on the job, who knew already just how quickly a situation could change, who had seen the very real consequences and wanted to know, just like Holden did, how to be better equipped in dealing with such occasions.

“Getting fired?” someone asked. Holden agreed readily, having talked down one too many office standoffs after just such an eventuality.

“Getting dumped,” another officer stated.

“Absolutely,” Holden confirmed. “A romantic break-up is a top trigger. When we know _who_ the criminal is, we can understand _what_ set him off.”

“In a homicide situation,” Bill interjected, “we do the inverse. We ask _‘what happened? Why did it happen that way?’_ which narrows the search for who did it. But, what if our killer is someone who’s not rational?”

Holden remembered back to Rathman’s lecture and their after-work conversation regarding the very same thing. It seemed as though no one in Fairfield knew the answer to that question either, as many simply watched Agent Tench in silence, almost as though they were hoping he had the answer – an answer to a question that Holden knew was not being asked enough.

“Why _do_ we behave the way we do?” he asked, wanting more people in law enforcement to ask that very same question, wanting more people to want to _find_ an answer. “The greatest minds in history have been fascinated by the vagaries of behaviour, so in a case where we can’t immediately divine a motive, we shouldn’t panic. It’s a riddle, but it _can_ be solved. It’s complex, but it’s human.”

He could tell even without the bewildered muttering that he had lost them, even _his_ shortcomings when it came to social awareness were not that extreme.

“We’ve always looked at motive as need or greed, right?” he tried to clarify himself to the few officers who had stuck around after the slide show had ended. Holden wanted to get them talking, to look for an answer themselves instead of simply trying to be given one, so he posed a hypothetical about impulsive behaviour, glad Bill, at the very least, understood where he was coming from.

“He could be motivated by something _he_ doesn’t even understand,” Bill offered.

“Our new quest, like Freud, is to look beyond what we assume are obvious impulses,” Holden summarised, trying to make his point. The old methods were no longer enough – psychological understanding had evolved and law enforcement needed to do the same.

“So why didn’t you just say that?” demanded an older, grizzled cop before dismissing Holden and leaving without waiting for an answer.

Holden bit back a sigh. Shepherd was not the only one clinging to the old ways and Holden was at a loss as to how he could convince them towards a new way of thinking. Doing something because it was the way it had always been done was redundant and it was dangerous, Miller was evidence enough of that. Holden had seen the gaps in law enforcement, so had Rathman, and so too, he suspected, had Bill Tench, and there were probably others out there, too. But simply knowing of their inadequacies wasn’t enough – something needed to be done about them but Holden didn’t even know how to begin to convince the rest of the law enforcement world of that.

Venting his frustrations to Bill got him nowhere.

“Just don’t make it too complicated,” the older man advised.

“What’s wrong with complicated?” Holden asked, genuine with his earnestness. He told his students to expect complicated because they would be dealing with people and people were always complicated. It was ridiculous to expect anything _but_ complicated when working in law enforcement, especially with the rise of crimes committed between strangers, where motive remained an indefinable thing.

“What do we have in common?” Holden wondered quietly, trying to come up with a suitable method to get his point across. “What unites us? What keeps us all awake at night?”

* * *

He talked the cops through Manson’s childhood, ignoring the jeers and boos as Manson and his crimes were projected across the screen.

“Here we have a child who was unwanted, unloved, regularly beaten and repeatedly institutionalised. Now, might this not have had _some_ sort of an effect on him?”

“He was born that way,” an officer in the crowd dismissed the question. “Just bad.”

“Technically, he didn’t kill anyone,” Holden pointed out, a facet of the case that he had personally found to be the most interesting – a man who had managed to somehow convince kids from reasonably well-to-do backgrounds to kill on his behalf. Surely that was where the focus should be? Not on the media frenzy that seemed intent on mythologizing the man but on understanding how his cult of personality could produce people willing to kill for him.

“Good, evil, black, white, it’s _easy_. But who in this room has a life that’s easy?” Holden asked. A simple, straightforward question with an answer that always invited a complicated answer. “Circumstances affect behaviour. When we look at Manson’s background the real question is how could we _not_ have seen this coming?

“I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for Charles Manson,” Holden tried to defend himself when the crowd started to protest his line of questioning.

“I think what Holden is trying to say is maybe it’s both,” Tench interjected, jumping to his feet in an effort to calm the crowd. “The one impacting on the other in a vicious circle.”

“When it comes to these kinds of things, no one has all the answers,” Holden offered his own gesture of peacekeeping. He wasn’t pointing out the flaws of the men in that room, but flaws that existed in society in general, flaws that allowed for unanswered questions of such magnitude to remain unanswered. “We should be asking questions.”

He didn’t mind being challenged, what made him frustrated was that he had no response that would get people back to thinking about his original point. They were now mired in a traditional law enforcement pissing contest instead of looking at the validity of his point. He wasn’t excusing Manson or the actions of his Family, he was simply trying to state that there was a need to understand the reasons for such aberrant behaviour, that such an understanding could be a valuable tool in law enforcement’s arsenal.

* * *

“They completely missed my point,” Holden stated defensively as Tench told him how he should have behaved with the cops.

He swallowed his pride and followed Bill’s lead when McGraw came to them in the diner, easily offering his forgiveness but avoiding eye contact as he tried to keep his tone even. Holden admired Bill’s even manner with the officer, wished he could have even half that social ease, but that wasn’t him – he was direct and wished other people would be too.

“What’s on your mind, Frank?” he asked softly but cutting to the chase. 

McGraw was talking more to Tench anyway, clearly still not sure how much use Holden would be, but the younger agent listened to the details of the case avidly, trying to take in all of the details. It was clear that McGraw was heavily affected by the murders, his voice breaking and bottom lip quivering with poorly restrained emotion. Holden knew how close people could be in these small towns and he wondered just how well the officer knew the victims.

“What people won’t do to each other,” McGraw said, lowering his head in despair. “Nothing they won’t do.”

Holden could not disagree – he was no stranger to violence and Cody Williams was, sadly, far from the first mutilated body he had seen. His time with Vice had shown him the horrors people were prepared to inflict upon the most vulnerable in society – he had seen children sold into prostitution by their parents, used and abused, tortured for someone else’s pleasure, women beaten and raped so their pimp could collect a tiny fee for their suffering. The Drug Squad had shown him how far people were prepared to go to find their fix, no matter who they hurt in the process. Hostage Negotiation had shown him what people could do to their loved ones – he had seen people turn guns and threats of violence towards their own families, on friends and work colleagues, the smallest wrong used as justification for potential homicide.

“How can we help?” Holden wanted to know.

It turned out good intentions weren’t enough. They tossed around some ideas based on what little evidence they had in the files in front of them, but it was little more than that and McGraw was clearly unsatisfied. Holden tried to analyse the behaviour, take what he could from the killer’s actions. “Is this crime about the _woman_ or the _child_?”

“You’re asking _me_?” McGraw asked.

“I was just posing questions,” Holden carried on theorising. “The church could be significant.”

“ _Could_ _be_?” McGraw asked again, incredulous.

“All I’m saying is that the broom may mean something,” Holden tried to placate the man.

“What?” McGraw demanded, his patience clearly at an end.

“I don’t know,” Holden admitted. “I don’t understand it. We can’t help you with this. We are in the dark here, we don’t know any more than you do. I’m sorry we wasted your time.”

He could hear Bill trying to smooth the ruffled feathers, but knew from McGraw’s face before he left the room that some things couldn’t be smoothed. He hadn’t meant to offend the man but he didn’t see the point in lying to him either – the FBI simply didn’t have the answers to the kind of questions McGraw was asking. It was what he had been trying to say in the lecture earlier that day. It was a quest to find those answers that had taken him back to university in the first place.

* * *

They had been driving for a while, an uncomfortable silence between the two men interrupted only when Bill jabbed the radio on and lit a cigarette. Holden knew the older agent was angry, was awaiting another instructional lecture from the man with regards to how he should be behaving around these cops. He wished Tench would just come out with it.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“In the dark, huh?” Tench asked angrily.

“We are,” Holden replied unrepentantly. “I have studied everything we have to offer; I’ve taken this ride out here with you, listened to everything you’ve been kind enough to teach men but I still think we are talking about something that we don’t understand in the slightest.”

“I was trying to help you,” Bill pointed out through gritted teeth. “If you don’t like it, go back to your bedwetting college kids and we’ll forget all about it.”

“Ada Jefferies and her son were killed for reasons we are simply not equipped to understand,” Holden argued back, his own ire finally overtaking his frustration. “It wasn’t lust murder. It wasn’t some random thrill killer who was _born bad_ ,” he sneered. “And it wasn’t a pantie thief who wanted to change things up. It was an aberration.”

“Well, let me tell you something about aberrant behaviour, Holden – it’s fucking aberrant! If we understood it, we’d be aberrant too. Fortunately, it’s not incumbent upon us to write a dissertation.”

“Well maybe we should,” Holden fired back, caught up in his anger but already clinging to that idea.

“Why?” demanded Bill, some of the heat lost from his voice as curiosity found a place there too.

“Our job,” Holden offered as he turned his whole body towards the driver, “is to give him something he could not have figured out for himself. No disrespect, at the moment I just don’t think we can say anything to a guy like McGraw with any kind of certainty.”

“Let me ask you something,” Bill replied. “Where are you from?”

Holden had to resist the urge to roll his eyes but he could feel his head shake of its own accord. Why did his origins have any kind of an impact on their conversation?

“I was born in New York but it’s kind of a mixed bag,” Holden offered the familiar answer.

“Okay, well that’s what you are right now, kind of a mixed bag – a little college education, some experience on the street, some insight, a lot of horseshit!” Bill stated firmly.

“I agree with you,” Holden replied, and he did. He _knew_ he didn’t have all of the answers, that was why he went back to college, that was why he was with Bill, that was why he was trying to find an answer to the question, a question he had first heard in a lecture that Bill himself had been silently observing, a question Bill had even asked those cops back in that room – _‘where do we go when motive becomes elusive?’_

“It’s been one step forward, two steps back,” he admitted. However, Tench was not appeased, seemed to think that Holden should just keep his mouth shut during these trips. Holden was tired and frustrated and more than a little angry at his colleague’s short-sightedness, especially after having caught wind that some of those same questions and concerns haunted the older agent’s mind, too.

He gave up for now and leant back in his seat.

“Okay, Bill,” he offered shortly. But he was not going to give up that easily. He was onto something and he knew it. There had to be a way to understand aberrant behaviour. It didn’t mean he had to become aberrant – he didn’t have to take a whole load of people hostage to understand the motives behind the usual perps he dealt with. But perhaps with some empathy, a little work and a whole hell of a lot of luck, he could conceive of something that would help answer that niggling question: _‘where do we go when motive becomes elusive?’_

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into AO3, sorry for any mistakes.


End file.
